The Line to Georgia
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Oneshot. It was just a ride from Texas to Georgia. Daryl/Carol


**AN: This little "scene" is in response to the Tumblr prompt that wanted Caryl meeting on a train ride.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl didn't care one damn bit for the back and forth "sway" of the train. They could tell him that the movement of the car was "not perceptible" all they wanted, but he perceived it just fine.

It was almost enough to make him seasick. Still, it was the best way to travel and he didn't have any argument against the view. Out the large windows, he could watch the landscape passing by. He could see the countryside as it rolled past, just like a large, elaborate carpet of trees and grass and the occasional town being rolled out alongside them as they rolled.

Daryl liked that. For a while? He focused his attention just on watching it. He focused his attention on imagining what it would be like—what home would be like.

He was going home.

It sounded so much more romantic than it was. He wanted it to be so much more than it was.

Because it was really only that he was travelling back across the country to find his brother. He was travelling back across the country to try and make some kind of life with his brother because he was the only family that he had left.

Texas to Georgia. Before? It had been Georgia to Texas.

Not much had changed. The landscape was a little different, perhaps, but not much had changed. Though, Daryl suspected that he'd changed, at least a little, since he'd first gone to Texas, and he knew that things had changed at home.

His parents were gone now. His brother had gotten in contact with him. It wasn't any great loss, if the truth were told. Daryl had gone to Texas in search of a better life, or a different life. Although, when he'd left, he'd been pretty sure that anything different had to be better than what he had. He'd gone to Texas to get away from his parents. Now? They'd gotten as far away from Daryl and his brother both as was possible.

So he was headed back to Georgia now to look his brother up again. Texas had been a bust. He wasn't much of a rancher and there was no place for him in oil. Other than that? He wasn't sure there was anything really in Texas. There was certainly nothing for him.

The train was almost empty. The car that Daryl was in was entirely empty. The one in front of him too. Not too many people were travelling.

At least, not too many people were travelling in this direction. When he'd gone to Texas? The whole damn train had been loaded down to the point where he'd doubted it would be able to move. Going back to Georgia, though? Everyone else must have found a hell of a lot more than he had out there—because they weren't leaving.

After sitting a mind numbingly long time alone in the one car, and after finding that the one directly in front of him was just as abandoned as his own, Daryl got up and headed for the one that was following him on his journey toward Georgia. Stepping into it, he found it as disappointing as the others. People who got on, it seemed, every time they stopped, must have gotten off just as quickly. Nobody was making the long trip like he was.

Nobody except this one other person.

Sitting alone in the car, her feet up in an empty seat where there was nobody to protest and her head leaned back against the window, there was a woman. She was missing the landscape as it unrolled beside them and, instead, had her nose stuck in a book. A big, boring looking type book. The kind that Daryl was certain he would never read—and would never want to read.

Driven by boredom and the fact that they were practically alone in the world, Daryl made his way down to where she was sitting, cleared his throat loudly, and invited himself to sit quietly when she glanced at him.

For a few moments? She continued to read. She was entirely unaware of his presence. She was lost in whatever it was that was happening in that long, boring book of hers. Daryl might as well have stayed in his own car by himself. At least then he could blame his being alone on the fact that there was nobody else around—and not on the fact that the woman was ignoring him.

Still, her ignoring him did have its benefits. He was able to look at her without her noticing it. He was able to look as much as he wanted—and she was none the wiser.

She was pretty. Small framed and fragile looking—not the kind of woman like the ones he'd worked with on some of the odd jobs he'd been on. She was the kind of woman that was overseeing those type jobs from somewhere where her pale and freckled skin wouldn't get burned.

Still, she didn't look so fragile that she might crumble.

Her hair was red. But it wasn't the carrot orange of some of the redheads that he'd known. It was a darker red. A chestnut red. It went in every such direction, spinning off here and there, in corkscrew curls. Daryl supposed, if one were to stretch them out, that her hair would be a good deal longer than it was now—but he wasn't exactly given to stretching out the hair of random women that he'd just met. In fact, he wasn't given to doing it to any women—there'd never been any in his life whose hair he'd have felt an invitation to touch.

Her eyes darted quickly, back and forth, across the lines that she was reading. They were blue eyes. Very blue. They were pretty. They'd be prettier if they were actually looking at him instead of at the book.

But it was clear that Daryl wasn't going to win when it came to competition with the words on the pages.

He sighed and started to get up. There was no need in sitting there beside the woman, even if she was pretty to look at, when she had no interest in his presence. When he got up, though, she sat up suddenly and straightened her position.

"You're going?" She asked.

Daryl turned back. She had a nice voice. It was a soft voice that went with her appearance. Some women he'd met had voices that just didn't fit with the way they looked—but hers fit just fine.

He smiled at her, not even meaning to do so, just because she'd finally acknowledged his presence.

"You don't want me here," he said. "Do you?"

He added the last part with just a touch of hopefulness.

"Well—I didn't want you to leave," the woman said. "But—if you've got somewhere else to be?"

Daryl resisted the urge to point out to her that they were both trapped on a moving train and were likely to go far at any rate. He returned to his seat, and this time she tucked her book to the side instead of diving back into it.

Now she was looking at him, just like he wanted, but he no longer knew what he should do about it.

He swallowed.

"I'm Carol," she said, offering him a smile. Her smile was nice too. It was much nicer, honestly, than the half-scowl she'd worn while lost in the literary land that had consumed her before.

He got so wrapped up in it, though, that he forgot to answer her.

"You are?" She prompted, reminding him that he hadn't told her.

"Daryl," he said. "Daryl Dixon."

She renewed her smile.

"Carol McAlister," she said.

She adjusted her position and looked out the window for a moment as though she'd just now become aware of the fact that the land was just rolling past them.

"Carol McAlister," she repeated. "But not for long. No. Not for long. Soon? I'll be Mrs. Edward Peletier. Carol McAlister Peletier."

She looked back toward Daryl.

"It's a nice name, isn't it? Peletier? French, I think," Carol said.

Daryl hummed.

"I don't know if it's French or not," he admitted. "Nice enough name, though, I guess."

"What is Dixon?" She asked.

Daryl furrowed his brows at her and hummed in question.

"Is it French?" Carol asked. "I bet it's English. Or it could be Scottish. If it's Scottish? Then we're both Scottish."

Daryl stared at her and she blushed.

"I'm talking too much?" She said.

Daryl considered it a moment. Maybe, on a regular day, and especially if it was just too hot to deal with something like that? He'd say that someone was talking too much to say half as much as she'd said. Strangely enough, though, it didn't bother him at all that she was talking.

And now that she was threatening to stop? He realized he didn't want her to do that either.

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "I don't know what it is, though. Just a name. Not even a very good one. Not to me. Never done me no favors."

Carol laughed at that. Daryl almost felt proud of having earned the sound from her.

He cleared his throat.

"Where's your husband?" Daryl asked.

"Hmmm?" Carol asked, shifting in her seat again.

"Your husband—or whatever," Daryl said. "Where is he? He's on the train?"

Carol raised her eyebrows at him and her mouth made the figure of an "o" as she realized what he was asking. She shook her head.

"I haven't met him," she said. "He's in Georgia. That's where I'm going. Georgia. He lives there. I'll meet him then and we'll be married. My aunt, which I used to live with? She arranged it. Some son of a family friend. But he's handsome and well to do. He's a gentleman with a French last name and his letters are nice. He's thrilled that I'm coming to marry him—I'm just what he's always wanted."

Carol laughed.

"It's silly to say that, isn't it?" She said. "I'm just what he's always wanted and he's never met me. He might meet me and think that I talk too much, just like my aunt said."

Daryl smiled.

There was something strange about this woman. About this girl. Daryl wasn't really sure how old she was and he knew enough to know that it was rude to ask. She was old enough that her aunt was sending her, apparently, across the country to marry a man that she didn't know—so she must be of a decent enough age.

Regardless of her age, though, there was something strange about her. She did, like maybe her aunt had suggested, talk a lot, but Daryl found that he was content to listen to it. He hoped she talked all the way to Georgia.

And when he thought of that?

His stomach did a strange little flip and turn that he wasn't expecting. Just thinking about Georgia? It made him feel strange, himself. Because he didn't want her to stop talking then. He didn't want to step down off train steps and leave her behind, if he was to get off first, and he didn't want to watch her go if she were to get off first.

He didn't want to hand her over to her French named husband-to-be. But, of course, he had no real claim to her. They were simply sharing a train car. They were simply sharing a moment in time that would run by as quickly as the land outside unrolled alongside them.

"You happy to marry him?" Daryl asked, hoping to keep her talking.

Carol hummed and nodded her head.

"It's the proper thing to do," she said. "I think—I can imagine what he'll be like. I've read a lot of books, you know. I think—whatever he is? I'll know how to make him happy. Whatever he wants me to be? I'm a good actress. I can be what he wants."

Daryl swallowed.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah—I bet you can. I can't imagine him wanting nothing different. You—you seem alright to me. Can't imagine him wanting nothing different."

Carol smiled at his flattery.

"Are you married?" Carol asked.

"No," Daryl responded. He laughed to himself and shook his head adamantly. "No—not at all. Don't reckon there's nobody comin' for me, neither, on no train."

Carol frowned at him and he immediately wished he'd lied. It would be telling her something that wasn't true, perhaps, but at least it would've kept the smile. He could've made up some woman or another that maybe he wanted—though all of a sudden he couldn't think of any woman he wanted that didn't seem exactly like her.

And he couldn't have her. He'd only have her, if he could even call it that, for however long it took for Georgia to roll out beside them.

"I'm sure there's someone out there," Carol said. "There's someone for everyone, you know."

Daryl hummed to himself.

He forced himself to put on a smile he didn't really feel at all for the moment.

"Yeah," he said. "Reckon there is..."

He dropped it, desperate to change the subject—desperate to steer the conversation to something she might want to talk about—desperate to make it as good as it could be before the train would slow and bring them back to reality and send her, Carol, off to a husband that Daryl could only hope would like her half as much as he did right now.

"What's your book about?" Daryl asked. "We got time—tell me about it. So I don't have to read it, ya know?"

Carol scrunched her nose at him and looked at the book before she looked back toward him.

"Are you sure?" She asked. "I don't want to talk too much...you've hardly talked at all."

Daryl smiled at her and shook his head.

"I ain't much for talking," he said. "So—I guess we balance each other out alright. Tell me about your book."

Pleased, she settled back comfortably and started to tell him about this long and boring book. Except, coming from her, it didn't seem too boring. And it wouldn't be nearly long enough.

But Daryl took what he had, rocking with the "non-perceptible" motion of the train, and listened to the words roll off her tongue. It was a love story. One he might have been able to imagine if he'd closed his eyes, but he didn't want to close them. He'd rather, while it lasted, alternate between watching her form the words with her lips and watch, out the window, as the landscape rolled out beside them and brought them ever closer to their destination and the end of their love story.


End file.
